Online auctions are a popular way for participants to bid for products and services (collectively referred to as “items”) over the Internet. Online auction sites such as eBay, uBid, OnlineAuction, eBid, and others commonly employ a system in which some individual online auctions are held for a fixed duration and end at a specific time that is known in advance to the participants. The bidder who has placed the highest bid at the time the online auction ends is the winner.
Some online auction sites employ automatic or “proxy bidding” where an online auction bidder specifies the maximum bid amount that he or she is willing to pay for an item. Automated systems at the online auction website will place bids on the bidder's behalf typically using a predetermined incremental amount over the current high bid. As other bids come in on the item, the automated proxy bidding system will continue to place bids for the bidder up to the specified maximum. The bidder's maximum bid is kept confidential until it exceeded by another bidder. Proxy bidding makes it convenient to participate in an online auction without participants having to watch online auctions and come back to re-bid every time someone places a higher bid and thus encourages the online auction participant to specify the maximum amount they are willing to pay for an item.
Fixed duration online auctions are susceptible to a practice called “sniping” in which a bidder jumps in and places the highest bid very close to the online auction's end time so that there is not enough time for other bidders to increase their bids beyond their specified maximum. Although sniping advocates point out that the sniper only wins the auction if he or she is willing to pay more for the item than the other bidders, sniping draws complaints from both online auction buyers and sellers alike. Some online auction buyers dislike sniping because they find it frustrating to place a bid and then patiently wait for an online auction to end only to have the item get snatched away at the last second. Buyers may also feel that it is unfair that they do not get another chance to bid after seeing and evaluating the other higher bid. Some buyers have expressed a desire to know what other bidders are willing to pay and be given a chance to place a higher bid as is common in regular live auctions where the auctioneer provides opportunities to place final bids by saying “going once, going twice, . . . gone” before ending the auction with a bang of the gavel. Some sellers of items on an online auction site also dislike sniping because they believe it lowers the price that they might otherwise receive for items if buyers could get caught up in the excitement and frenzy of the online auction. Sniping may be viewed by sellers as a practice that precludes the possibility for buyers to drive up the item price as they attempt to outbid each other.
This Background is provided to introduce a brief context for the Summary and Detailed Description that follow. This Background is not intended to be an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter nor be viewed as limiting the claimed subject matter to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages or problems presented above.